Recharging The Batteries

Do you need to recharge your batteries?

From time to time there are great networking opportunities to connect with like-minded individuals who share our passion for brotherhood and hunger for education.

PLUG IN!

Let’s really examine what it means to recharge our batteries. There are many opportunities to attend seminars, conferences, and workshops.

Are we taking advantage of them?

Have we really come to terms on how important it truly is to connect with others who share our visions, values, and the overall mission of why we are firefighters?

There are many times when we throw around the term brother and brotherhood but are we really practicing this in our personal and professional lives?

It’s time to plug in!

Plugging in means we all have to become better at realizing that we are not machines running on clichés. We are human with the need to connect, share, and take in the brotherhood that can be found and exemplified through these mediums.

With social media so prevalent the opportunities to connect with one another is as easy as a click away. We all need to take advantage of the art of communication. Many of the same stressors and problems that we face have been dealt with by others, somewhere, and somehow. By plugging in, we find outlets for our frustration and learn to manage them before these situations manage us.

Why Is This So Important?

The pressures of the fire service can often lead to becoming burned out, beaten down, and leave us with a general sense of wanting to throw our hands up and say I’m done. Well just as a structure fills with black acrid smoke, we too can become clouded and in need for positive ventilation. Surrounding ourselves with others who are in need of these very same wants and desires give all of us the opportunity to recharge.

Become the agent of positive change in not only yourself but those who can make positive and lasting bonds account for something.

PLUG IN!

How can we practice this important part of personal and professional development?

We have to do some serious soul-searching and be honest with ourselves. We need to start with writing down our personal mission statements and constantly re-evaluate our actions to see if we are meeting the objective.

Become a goal oriented individual and decide how incorporating conferences, seminars and workshops can assist us with meeting the standards we set for ourselves.

We all have busy lives and putting the time in can become increasingly difficult to achieve, but do not lose the enthusiasm we once had when we first became firefighters. Develop a vision and then make it our mission to achieve it!

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

-Robert Louis Stevenson